Criminal Law.

The flagrant crime procedure applies when a person is arrested for an offence committed in the act, or discovered shortly after. It is designed to move quickly, and in practice a defendant can be brought before a court within days of arrest — a fraction of the time a standard criminal case takes to reach trial. That compressed timeline leaves very little room to gather evidence, locate witnesses or prepare a considered defence unless a lawyer is engaged immediately, ideally from the moment of arrest itself. We maintain exclusive 24-hour availability for exactly this reason — the difference between contacting a lawyer within hours versus a day or two later can be the difference between a prepared defence and none at all.

Greek criminal procedure allows the victim of a crime to join the criminal proceedings as a civil party (politiki agogi), claiming damages within the same case rather than pursuing a wholly separate, slower civil action. This means the same court that hears the criminal charge can also address the victim's claim for compensation, which is often faster and more efficient than starting an independent civil suit. We represent victims seeking civil party status, from the decision of whether to join the proceedings through to pursuing the claim itself.

Under current Greek law, anyone who steered or otherwise assisted during an unauthorised sea crossing can be charged and prosecuted as a smuggler — including a refugee or asylum seeker who took the helm out of necessity during their own escape, alongside fellow passengers making the same crossing. This has resulted in individuals, sometimes minors, facing sentences running into decades for conduct that arose directly from fleeing conflict rather than organised trafficking for profit. These prosecutions have drawn sustained scrutiny from international press and human rights observers over whether defendants receive adequate time, interpretation and a genuinely fair hearing under European law. This is a serious, complex area, and a rigorous, committed defence — including on the fairness of the process itself — matters enormously to the outcome. Spyros Pantazis has represented clients in exactly this position, and his advocacy on trial fairness in these cases has been covered by The Guardian and Inkstick Media.

The evidence, and therefore the strategy, is fundamentally different. A white-collar or economic crime allegation — fraud, misappropriation, cyber crime — typically turns on documents, financial records and technical evidence accumulated over months, so a defence built early, before the investigation narrows to a fixed narrative, tends to be strongest. A violent crime allegation — homicide, robbery, burglary, arson — usually turns on physical evidence, witness testimony and forensic findings that need to be tested from the earliest point in the investigation, often within days. We treat these as genuinely different disciplines rather than applying one template to every criminal matter.

Yes, and this is often when representation matters most. Decisions made during the investigation and pre-trial stage — what is said in an initial statement, what evidence is preserved or challenged, how early procedural rights are exercised — frequently shape everything that follows, including whether formal charges are filed at all and on what basis. We represent clients from the earliest point of contact with an investigation, not only once a case has already reached trial.

Yes. Many of our criminal matters have a cross-border element — foreign nationals facing charges in Greece, Greek nationals or residents facing proceedings connected to conduct abroad, and economic crime cases involving assets or transactions in more than one jurisdiction. We work in English, Greek and Italian so nothing is lost in translation at a critical stage.